A magnetic disk drive includes a rotating magnetic disk and a thin film magnetic head supported by a suspension and positioned in a radial direction of the magnetic disk. The magnetic head reads and writes magnetic data from and to the magnetic disk while relatively traveling over the magnetic disk. The slider of the magnetic head is designed to fly through the assistance of an air lubrication bearing, that is, an air wedge film effect, so that the slider does not come into direct contact with the magnetic disk. In order to realize higher recording density of a magnetic disk drive, and thereby increased capacity and reduced size thereof, it is effective to increase line recording density by reducing a distance between the slider and the magnetic disk, namely, the flying height of the slider.
The conventional design of flying height of a slide has allowed for a decrease in flying height resulting from machining variations, a temperature difference of usage environment, a difference in flying height between read and write and the like and has been provided with a flying height margin in order to prevent contact between the slider and the disk even under the worst conditions. If a slider is used having a capability of adjusting a flying height according to the use conditions for each thin magnetic head, it is possible to eliminate the margin mentioned above and thereby significantly reduce a flying height of a read/write element while preventing the contact between the slider and the disk. Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. 2004-342151 (“Patent Document 1”) proposes a slider structure in which a heater made of a thin film resistive element is provided in the vicinity of a write element and a read element, heats part of the slider as necessary to thermally expand for protrusion, thus adjusting a distance between the write element and the read element, and a magnetic recording medium.
However, if the heater is provided to adjust flying height, then the number of lines in the read and write elements and the number of terminals disposed on the rear end face of the head will be increased. Also the number of lines on the suspension connected to the terminals is increased, thus narrowing each spacing between the lines. This poses a problem of crosstalk from the write element lines to the read element lines during writing. In order to solve the problem of crosstalk, Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. 2004-192742 (“Patent Document 2”) discloses structures in which read element lines are disposed to be put between heater lines on a suspension and in which heater lines are disposed between write element lines and read element lines on the suspension.
As described in Patent Document 2, the structures in which read element lines are disposed between the heater lines and in which heater lines are disposed between write element lines and read element lines, can avoid an adverse affect of crosstalk current on the read element due to a high-frequency current of the write element or due to a heater current turned on and off. If a TMR (Tunneling Magnetoresistive) element is used as read element, however, it uses an electrode as a magnetic shield or vice versa. This poses a problem in that noise applied to the heater lines due to noise from a heater source or electromagnetic induction, has a direct influence on the TMR element, namely, on a read signal.